What's the worst thing you've ever done to a rental?

[84hurst]

I saw a similar thread on clubgp.com, but let's hear a few stories from some of the local guys!

[juicedimpss]

this sounds like a good way to rat yourself out....

[84hurst]

sorry, no stories as of yet, just wanted to see what others have done. :)

[srt4eh]

not me but I wish it was....

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/gparmer/articles/neon/NOSDRAG.jpg
Ever want to nitrous your ride, but were afraid you'd grenade your mega-dollar motor into smithereens, or trash your daily driver? Well, fear no more. For the measly sum of $19.95, we can absolutely guarantee that you won't blow YOUR motor. How? Heh heh heh. Just rent a car from your local, smiling Thrifty agent (we highly recommend the sunny Phoenix locations.) His motor + your nitrous system = no problem. Experience the thrill of nitrous, totally uninhibited. No longer will you feel the urge to back off because you're afraid of scattering YOUR dollars along the side of the road or at the strip. It's like hot fudge sundaes without the guilt. Mopar Action's staff, the same people who brought you the Rental Car Nats and the famous "push-o-war" (nose-to-nose burnouts), are out on a brief furlough from Nurse Ratchet's psycho ward, and will outdo themselves again by showing you how to knock over 3 seconds off a bone stock Neon. Yeah, you got it! 16.90 @ 81MPH to a zero-traction 13.82 @ 102. Have we got chrome-moly spheres, or what?

We slammed together a supersimple N2O system for our bone stock 3-speed automatic rent-a-Neon (with 13-inch wheels!!) The setup consisted of readily available parts from the NOS nitrous catalog and the local NAPA parts store. Our goal was to make no engine mods and unbolt nothing from the car during installation. In other words, we wanted to be smarter than O.J., and leave no incriminating evidence behind (is America a great country, or what?)

The system consisted of an N20 tank held in the back seat by the lap and shoulder belt, a length of braided hose laying on the carpet, and routed through the unused clutch-cable firewall hole, the cheapest electric fuel pump we could find, nitrous and fuel solenoids and two simple injectors. The injectors consisted of nothing more than two short lengths of 3/16" brake line tubing with the solenoids attached at one end and 2 NOS-modified "AN" fittings that accept NOS nitrous and fuel-metering jets on the other end. A painless incision into the soft plastic air box hose allowed N2O and fuel to be injected directly above the throttle body. The whole deal was held in place by duct tape and cable ties. Replaceable jets allowed precision tuning of the system to any level of insanity desired.

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/gparmer/articles/neon/NOS1.jpg
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/gparmer/articles/neon/NOS2.jpg
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/gparmer/articles/neon/NOS3.jpg
Auxiliary fuel (alcohol "drygas") was stored in the windshield washer reservoir and the small electric pump was added to supply fuel (the windshield wiper fluid pump will not supply enough fuel) to a solenoid. This setup was rigged into the horn wiring to open the solenoids when you punch the horn button (we did disconnect the horn button).
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/gparmer/articles/neon/NOS4.jpg
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/users/gparmer/articles/neon/NOS5.jpg
So how did it work? Awesome. Simply awesome. We started out with a 50HP nitrous jet with 100% excess fuel. Hitting the horn at 4000RPM in 2nd gear felt like 15 lbs of boost. Were we happy? Nope! Onward to the 75HP jet and only 50% excess fuel. The Neon was amazing. We worked up the guts for 1800 RPM launches in first gear. Oops out of nitrous, before you can say: "Thrifty." Luckily, we had brought a second bottle.

The entire Mopar Action staff flogged the Neon mercilessly, but we couldn't break it (yet). The high (low?) point came when "Crazy" Eddie Yeznaian, intrepid rally racer and wildebeest extraordinaire, actually power-braked the car to the floor, cut the wheel to the left, and hit the nitrous in reverse. Nothin' like nitrous doughnuts after a hard day at the office! (Since this was done in the rain, does that make it Dunkin' Donuts?) If you can imagine what it must be like to be trapped in a spinning top at 200 RPM, you get the idea. Where are the air-sickness bags for this ride? H-E-L-L-L-P!

After the second full 10 pound bottle of nitrous had been greedily half-guzzled by the motor, we decided to go for broke before it was empty. We slipped in the killer 150HP jets. Is this sick, or what? We more than doubled the stock HP output! Jeeez! 13.82 @ 102mph. The motor took first gear launches at 2000RPM with cylinder pressures that should have shot the plugs through the hood, and exhaust gas temps that were slightly hotter than the surface of the sun.

Could the Neon go faster? And, mainly, would the converter stay in the transaxle, or launch like a Saturn rocket and slice our legs off at the knees? (And, do they rent hand-control Neons?) For our last runs of the day, we leaned out the fuel jet for only 5% excess fuel and stuck our guinea pig editor, Cliff "Pleeeeease don't blow the motor, guys!" Gromer behind the wheel. For his first duel, Cliff matched himself up with an automatic Mustang GT at the track. The pony car came out of the shoot even with the Neon, and pulled ahead by the 300-ft mark. The Neon, now in second, gets juiced by Gromer. Result? Like taking candy from a baby. Cliff's little rent-a-PL was so far out on the 'Stang that he was able to back off in third, turning a 14.15 at 96.7.

Later, in an impromptu street run from a 10mph roll-on, Cliff, the sick puppy that he is, hit the horn button in first gear, right on the "3" count, the 2-liter Twinkie motor screamed for mercy, the tires spun all the way through first gear. We were fender to fender with a fast 440-6 Challenger R/T. He ripped his piston-grip to second, but we pulled ahead. Clifford boiled the tires big-time into second gear, allowing the R/T to pull alongside. The Neon mini-motor wound tight-right to the rev limiter. Did Cliff lift? Did he back off? No chance! Ka-boom! A glowing three-foot fireball barked out of each side of the hood, and rolled back over the windshield. Cheeez! This actually caused the R/T driver to lift, but not Cliff! Wow. Say goodbye to Neon.

We pulled over, fully expecting to see rods hanging out of the block. Surprise. Only the airbox is blown apart. With the leaned out fuel system and the motor running so far into the rev limiter that the stock injectors were shut completely off, we musta floated the valves and backfired through the intake system. The motor was running a little rough (a slight understatement) and we're sure we bent at least one valve, or, more likely, blew the head off of a couple. Guess we should have followed Mark's rules (see sidebar). Needless to say it was the best $19.95 we ever spent. We gassed the Neon back up and limped back to the ever-smiling counterperson.

Thanks, Thrifty.

[Crawlin]

Two years ago.... Vail, CO 2004 White Suburban LS 4X4....

Being that I don't drink very much anymore(compared to what I used to) and prefer to be low key and NOT be the trashed one, I usually volunteer to be the designated driver. Well after a long night of partying at the bars, it's time to drive home. And of course for the drunks amusement, I have to be fishtailing back and forth up the hill on the way to our condo. Done it a million times. Well of course I decide to hit the snowbank on the mountain side of the road and it's a little deep and sucks us RIGHT IN and down the embankment. So here we are, the truck is at about a 75* angle with the right side pretty much resting up against the mountain. Luckily it hadn't been on the CLIFF side of the road otherwise we probably would have flown off the hill.

Of course this was AFTER a couple days of "fun". As in the minute we get there before we had even parked we slammed it into a snowbank the plows had made for us at the end of the condo row. And of course this is after the many snowbanks we had gone through(and a couple not realizing a big rock was underneath) and tearing up the front bumper. We were missing the whole lower grille area, the air dam, the fog lights, one headlight cracked, the windshield cracked from a snowball fight, the top of the truck scraped up from landing on it after snowboarding off a little ramp on the hill NEXT to our condo(hard to explain cause they had gotten like 15ft of snow the day before we arrived), Another couple dents in the sides because of snowball fights, and of course the obligatory "i'm not gonna clean the windows ONCE during the trip". That front windshield was BROWN as could be from dirt and road salt from the trip.

And guess what, January 12th this winter, we are all going back out there:) Of course last year's snowboard trip to Mammoth Lakes, CA was even better.


OH YEAH one more thing... everyone remember jackass when the guy was on top of the golf cart and got shot off the cart when they hit the dirt pile. I can't count how many times we did that(some laying down, some standing up, and some on snowboards:) )

[Lash]

Wow...lol

[Car Guy]

I think I have done everything you possibly could to a rental without damaging anything obvious. A couple that come to mind are throwing a 02' town car into reverse, park, and back down to 1st gear at about 80 mph. Not much happened but HOLY SH*T was the tranny making noise, and ALOT of it. The other one was with a 02' Blazer, had it going in reverve at about 30-40-50??? mph and slamming it in to 1st gear, and did I mention that it was in 4-wheel drive? Can't remember if it was in '4 low' or not but man did it do and awesome 4 wheel burnout, did run the tires through a puddle to help them out though.....

I know these may not seem like the most extreme acts with a rental car but that's just the tip of the iceberg, can't think of any others right now. All this happened while working at a rental car company for less than 3 months.


Which is why I tell people if you're looking for a used car and it says rental or 'program' car on the inspection sticker.........DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT BUYING IT, EVEN IF IT'S HALF PRICE.....!!! Because odds are I drove it or someone like me did at some point in it's rental life.......

[TransAm12sec]

Why does Borchardt's suck?

How old do you have to be to get a rental?

[84hurst]

Borchardt's sucks because they screwed up my motor and it ended up blowing 2300 mi. later. They denied fault and it cast me $1000 to fix it, not to mention all the labor to take the motor out and put it in again. Mike Borchardt is a nice guy when you are handing him money, but is a total **** when you have a problem and it comes back to him. I would HIGHLY recommend that no one use his sevices. BTW, thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent :)

[Flight_740]

When I was in Cali for a week, we hit a driveway entrance that was on a very steep grade at about 30. People outside said we were about 3 ft. in the air. It was a Bonnivile.

[Car Guy]

...

[Car Guy]

Why does Borchardt's suck?

How old do you have to be to get a rental?


There's not enough time in the world to explain that one, and usually you have to be 25 or 26 to rent a car.........

[SSmike1]

HEY NAN
remember when i had that 4WD truck
for a rental?

wow, we had that thing taking Jumps way up in the AIR!
mud puddles, off roading,
till i got it stuck!

:)

it took us HOURS to get all the Mud off that thing!

we had her AIR-born Ranger High off the ground!
:wow

[Crawlin]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/junkgsx/flyingtrackercopy.jpg

like this? hey Junk... how's it feel on the landing, hahahaha

[STEALTHZR2]

3 years ago I had a rental when My silverado was being worked on. I had a 1983-84 4door Caviler. Car had so much rust. Seriously I thought the roof of the car would cave in. My buddy Zach and I were using the Emergency brake at every corner I took. Tried to make look like were in a Nissan Silva drifting. I also pulled the e-brake on the freeway at 80mph. Pretty much the tires were gone by the end of the day and the e-brake....what e-brake. I also drove the car through my dads woods. Almost hit a tree. And got it stuck in the back corn field. Couple hours later of cleaning. Returned it to the performance shop. They didn’t even call or look at it. And returned it with no gas :D All done in 5 hours.

[SSmike1]

YES
like that!

:)


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v617/junkgsx/flyingtrackercopy.jpg

like this? hey Junk... how's it feel on the landing, hahahaha

[Yamahachick02]

you have to be 21 to rent a car.

[jbiscuit]

HOLY CHIT! Is that Junk's Tracker?

[Crawlin]

indeed

[sriddccrocks]

one of the excavaters(JCB JS160) from work that was on rent tipped over on wednesday by texas roadhouse on bluemound

[SSmike1]

you have to be 21 to rent a car.
depends on WHO your renting the car from.
some places = 25 or older.

[SSmike1]

Hey Kristin,

WHERE WERE YOU?

i did not see ya at the Track at RA
Oct. 15 & 16?

:shades


you have to be 21 to rent a car.

[Car Guy]

you have to be 21 to rent a car.

Where......?

[BAD LS1]

you have to be 21 to rent a car.

I was 19 when i bought my SS from holz, brought it in for warranty wheel replacments, enterprise down the street gave me a 01' sonoma no questions asked....

Same with other dealers in the past too maybe policy is diff in warranty situations?

Oh yeah and :flipoff2: enterprise for having the balls for renting trucks with open rear ends and not a one with the locker... the ole 4.3 powered 2wd sonoma did some nice one leggers!! :rolf

[Slow Joe]

LOL... Worst ever done to a rental... Well... my dad and I were in Cabo San Lucas Mexico... we had a Wrangler 2.5L 5-Speed soft top half doors... you know how they're optioned base here in the US... Well in Mexico these rentals have smaller sway bars (from what I understand), smaller tires, and softer springs... So this thing already handled foul... Well we were drunk, and hit a speed bump at like 50km/h (can't remember exactly...) but damn did we get that thing air borne! It was all ****ed up when we got it though.. But damn that was funny... My dad has a few other good stories... I don't rent vehicles that often...